Thoughts on photography and what inspires it - books, poetry, film, art. And various other ramblings.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Chinese Photography

(Peng & Chen)

There seem to be some really interesting (not to say wild) things coming out of China in terms of photography and art.

(Tian Ye)

One a practical level, if you sell any kind of nice looking Dagor lens on ebay, chances are it will get snapped up from China with a high bid - Large Format cameras a selling very well to China (and they are producing many very nice cameras there as well - Shen Hao, Fotoman etc).

(Zhu Feng)

But there is a steady stream of photography which doesn't show any signs of slowing down. They've taken the Becher/Struthsky school approach and run with it. They've taken the contemporary portrait trend and given it their own twists. And there is stuff that's just plain crazy (cool crazy that is). I haven't picked any for this post, but there is a lot of conceptual mixed media and "performance" photography (it tends to makes Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall look rather dull and staid)

(Huang Yunhe)

I'm still finding it hard to get a handle on a lot of this, but I came across this site the other day. As well, individual photographers work seems to be showing up more and more on the blogs.

(Weng Peijun)

There is also the work of Peng & Chen who had their own edition of Colors all to themselves (Am I the only one that think that sounds like a pair of Vegas magicians...?). And Wengpei Jun's website here. PingMag also had a post on a new book on Chinese Photography

(Chen Wei)

(Btw, does anyone else not quite get Colors? I want to like it - I've looked at it regularly since it first came out as the Benetton things years ago, but there's just something about it that doesn't persuade to fork over the dollars for a copy. Maybe time to take a closer look again?)

2 comments:

Cary Tijerina
said...

I used to like Colors very much years ago. It had the look, feel, and structure of no other magazine I had ever seen. I was in my teens when I first saw it and the magazine seemed part joke, part children's magazine part multi-cultural collage.

If I recall correctly, the original editor died or quit and the magazine changed quite a bit. I haven't seen a copy in years.

Incidentally, I thought this months Aperture looked precisely like an old copy of Colors. Peter Hugo has the cover image and, imagine that, Hugo worked for several years at Fabrica, Colors' communication school/institute.

Dear Friends,hello.My name is Dr Andrija Pavlovic and I`m from Serbia ( former Yugoslavia ).I work as a doctor of medicine in a general ( municipality ) hospital, oncology department.

......... and I`m a passion photgrapher also !

I`m so sorry if I`m usurpating your precious time, but I have some problem and I `m sincerely seeking for a friendly advice.That`s the purpose of this email letter.

Briefly .....

I haven`t had a better idea than to try to contact some professionalist from China in a direction of that "problem" .......

I`m looking for some dSLR camera ( NIKON or CANON ) because I really need it for laparoscopic device which I use in my practice almost everyday.Also, I need it for my lovely passion .......Western`s dSLR cameras are very expensive for us, here in Serbia, so I have decided to find some Chinese supplier.

But, unfortunately I can not find some "reliable" supplier at all !Well, via internet ........

So, can you find some reliable "made in China" supplier of NIKON & CANON dSLR cameras for me ?To check the prices and quality in the nearest electronic shop or manufacturing company ......Nothing else.

So, is it really possible to find that on Chinese market !"Made in China".

Traces

"The Muse of photography is not one of Memory's daughters, but Memory herself." John Berger

"The photograph isn't what was photographed. It's something else. It's a new fact." Gary Winogrand

"The basic material of photographs is not intrinsically beautiful. It’s not like ivory or tapestry or bronze or oil on canvas. You’re not supposed to look at the thing, you’re supposed to look through it. It’s a window.” John Szarkowski